This month, I am watching morepeople I know get swallowed by what this government has become. Friends, including children my kid plays with, and people who showed up to work every single day until they didn’t. I want to talk about them, because I know them, and if you’re reading this from inside a bubble where this still feels like someone else’s problem, please don’t shut this out.
We found out this week that one of my husband’s oldest friends is in Laos. I’ve spoken to his wife. My husband has spoken to him. I am not going to share more than what’s ours to share, but what I can tell you is that he’s out of detention, that he’s there permanently. He has lived in the U.S. for his whole life. His parents were born in Laos, so that’s where DHS sent him. A country that is technically his by bloodline and completely foreign to him in every other way. His wife is still here. His kids are still here. His son is about the same age as my son, and now that little boy’s dad is on the other side of the world because of a federal agency that has been handed a mandate it is wielding like a weapon.
One of my son’s best friends is leaving next week. His parents made the decision months ago, after twelve years in this country, with three children born here, and a business they built in this town. They are woven into this community, but their visas came up for renewal; and the thing that people inside a bubble don’t understand is, doing everything right is no longer a guarantee of anything. The rules around visa renewals, the discretion that agents now have, the climate inside immigration offices, all of it has shifted in ways that make the process unpredictable even for people who have followed every step correctly and have every document in order. These are not people who cut corners. They are people who built a life here legally and are still afraid, because afraid is the rational response right now. So they made the only call they felt they could make and they’re going back to Germany. My kid is losing his best friend because his parents no longer feel safe in the country where their children were born.
Over many years, across service industries, I’ve managed more than a few hundred people. Many not born in this country, but hardworking people who showed up every shift and did the work without complaint, doing jobs most people won’t. Several of them have just stopped showing up with no notice in the past year, no goodbye, no explanation, because there wasn’t time for one. Latino employees, multiple workplaces, and everyone’s best guess is the same.
And then there are friends and family members of friends, people I know, people I’ve sat with, who have been taken to Mexico, some of whom aren’t even Mexican.
I’m on a text chain for Ventura and Santa Barbara County, a community alert system where neighbors let neighbors know when DHS is out, where they’ve been seen, who’s been picked up. It goes off all day, every day. I’ve thought about leaving the chat more times than I can count, because there is something genuinely destabilizing about watching that stream in real time. But I stay on it, because opting out of the notification isn’t the same as the threat going away. It just means I’ve chosen not to see it, and I’m not going to do that.
I know some of you reading this are insulated from it. Your neighborhood hasn’t changed, nobody you know has disappeared, the news feels like noise. I understand that I suppose. It’s comfortable, and comfort is hard to voluntarily give up. But I want to name what that insulation actually is, which is a choice. A choice to not ask questions, to not look at who’s missing from your community, your kids’ school, your favorite restaurant, to believe that because it hasn’t touched you directly it must not be that bad. It is that bad, and it’s worse actually, because the people it’s happening to are often the least positioned to fight back publicly and the most vulnerable to being erased from the conversation entirely.
I don’t like to write about things we can’t do anything about, so I want to leave you with something concrete. Share know-your-rights resources. The ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center both have printable cards in multiple languages and they matter. Support immigrant-owned businesses intentionally right now, because showing up and spending money is a real form of solidarity. If you have kids and you know a family navigating this, keep those friendships alive. Drive to them if you have to, and don’t let the kids absorb the isolation on top of everything else. Find your local mutual aid network by searching your city and “immigrant mutual aid fund” and see what exists.
And actually talk about it with the people in your life who are still inside the bubble, not to win an argument but to make it real. Put a face on it and use the stories you know.
This is the work of community, not the hashtag version but the actual version, showing up and staying connected and refusing to look away just because it’s easier not to. The people I know who are living this don’t have the luxury of looking away, and the least the rest of us can do is stay present with them.
